Measure of a Man

The world looks upon the usual characteristics to size up the measure of a man

The most obvious traits as seen from afar are the first to be scrutinized:

His physical size and strength, his looks. Next might be his wealth,

 his  belongings.  What does  he   drive, where does   he live?

You need to be closer to learn more. You need to be near

to understand  his wit and his  charm or his  intelligence

There is a smaller group of people that can draw nearer

 still, colleagues and friends will come to learn more.

They, over time, will notice his kindness, his loyalty

Fewer still  may see the  true soul of a man - his

 compassion and tenderness. The world makes

 snap judgements from a great distance

 away, believing they can distinguish

 the   great  from the   ordinary, but

it’s a flawed view. It’s only those

 that are closest that see him

 for   who  his truly  is, the

success, not the riches,

 nor  looks,  nor  wit,

 nor charm and not

 even   physical

 strength,   but

real   success

 is measured

 in   this:

His

Love

                                                                       Love is Foundational 

Love Small - and Often

Events of all kinds can motivate us, quite literally that can move us.  The good, the bad and the tragic times we witness and endure cause us to reflect on who we are, what we believe and how we will react.  It’s been the rapid degrading of my cousin Alan’s health that has had me reflecting and reacting lately.  I’ve written about it several times already.  Tonight’s story continues in the theme of love and kindness.

Seeing the compassionate care of Alan by family and nurses alike has caused me to remember similar treatment I’ve received. The most recent experience dates back to December of 2016 and continued into March (I think.) when my liver acted up and I need to visit VCU – the hospital in Richmond, VA where I had my liver transplant back in 2005.

There were several people that made my repeated treatments with the Interventional Radiology (IR) group  over the period of months much more bearable.  From Derrek in Registration to the Nurse Practitioner Beverly and two nurses – Amy and Jasmine, they shared the qualities of being skilled and compassionate.  I’ll refer to them as  “my team.”

VCU has a Daisy Award where patients can write a short note to nominate people, usually nurses, that extend extra effort and care.  I submitted a note nominating my team, but not being sure that it would be awarded , I gave each team member a card directly my last visits. It was a small thing just so they knew how much their compassion, smiles and hand holding meant to me.

Reflecting on Alan made me think of my team.  Life is too short and too often the world is seen to be too ugly – at least if you watch the news.  This shouldn’t be the case and it dawns on me that it might take just a short note or simple thank you to make someone’s day.  I wanted to write another short note to my team letting them know that I still remember their kindness today.  The problem was that I didn’t know their last names to address a card.  I searched the VCU website and still couldn’t locate them.

I ended up calling the IR desk this morning to find out how to send a card.  Wouldn’t you know that Amy happened to answer the phone.  Here’s the crazy part, I learned that Amy had just yesterday been talking about me.  She’s getting a Daisy award, and as best she can tell it is likely based on the note I wrote so long ago.  After explaining why I called and getting a name and address so I could mail my card, we had a short conversation.  I learned that she framed the card I had given her and it resides in her home office.  She said on hard days she returns home and that quick card I wrote reminds her of why she continues to be a nurse.

It didn’t take a lot of effort to write the note and submit  it for consideration for the Daisy Award, nor did it take much time to write a short card.  Yet it warms my heart that that miniscule gesture has had a lasting impact, just as my team has had a lasting impact on me.

The other day I wrote:  Pray hard. Play hard. Love Harder.

Perhaps it turns out that it’s not loving harder that’s needed, but it’s really,  Love in small ways. And those small ways are really huge after all.  So when you trek through life’s events, whether they be gentle, subtle, major or tragic, take time to reflect.  Even more, take time, just a small amount of time, to react in a small loving way.  A little note can be a huge pick me up.  A kind word could make someone’s day.

I may have known this to some degree.  I have to say, though, that It’s been my observation of the love of Alan’s family and friends as well as witnessing the compassion of his nurses, that has strengthened my belief in the power of small gestures.

Rest easy Alan, rest easy.

To the rest of us I say; Love Small – and often.

Echoes of Love

It’s another day, and one that finds me feeling more upbeat than yesterday. There is still a good deal of contemplation going on in my cranial cavity.  Thoughts of my parting words echo “ Love harder.. harder… arder… rder …"  growing fainter as the sound propagates through my gray matter.  What does that mean?  You probably have a sense of it without giving it much consideration.  There is a feeling or more likely a range of definitions that you automatically understand. Tonight though, let’s walk along a path to describe it more clearly.

Much like last evening I want to immediately take two distinct paths.  The first is the emotions that are tied up in the two word phrase while the second is the action.  Love harder.  Love in this instance is clearly a verb.  The implied subject is YOU, US, WE, ALL, EVERYONE!  Let’s start off with the emotion though.

The English language is far too rudimentary in the treatment of “love.”  Love in other languages, notably the old Greek, Latin and others, has multiple words to describe the many facets of love. Love can be the usual sensual attraction one might feel for another.  Yet, not every use of the word pertains to sexual desire.  There is a sense of love where it’s a self-sacrificial form of giving, epitomized in the Christian faith as the love of Christ for the world in his surrender to a horrible death.  It’s considered a God-centered love.  Those might be two extremes of the term, but are not the only distinctions.

There is a familial love as how a parent and child relate to one another.  I’ll easily tell my parents or brother, and cousin  “love you” with a different meaning, at least nuanced, from when I say the same words to my wife.  There can be another slight difference as well, in saying those words in response to someone that did something special for you that you appreciate.  The only example I can think of right now is when I’ve made a comment and I hear those words in response from my daughter-inlaw.

Those emotions, feelings and sentiments are not actions though.  “Love harder” conveys a directive, a mandate.  It’s a phrase that wants to change the way we act, the way we behave. And importantly it’s a phrase that asks us to act in a more loving way.  Like the variety of emotions the use of the word love has as a noun, there are as many varieties of the action – of the verb.

It’s been said that love is a choice, a decision, and I believe that to be true.  We are given countless opportunities to decide to act either rudely or with grace.  We can be grumpy or kind. We can choose to be giving or stingy. We can act in kindness or with malice.  It all comes down to what we decide.  Oh, this is not an easy thing. Simple perhaps, but not easy. Far too often, I can feel my ire rising and too quickly answer an unhelpful  customer service rep with less than a friendly reply.  Honestly, at times I can be down right harsh – and feel it was fully justified!  That’s the opposite of Loving Harder.  I have a lot of work to do my friends.  For as lovely as I know you all to be, I imagine we all could love a little harder – at least occasionally.

How easy is it to say there isn’t enough time to visit with a friend or family member?  How difficult do we find it to drop our plans to lend a hand at an inopportune time?  What cost will we bear to help a stranger? Isn’t it uplifting to hear of a story where a complete stranger was moved to donate a kidney to someone in dire need?  Isn’t it lovely to see a police office pay for groceries instead of arresting a person that is flat broke and is trying to feed a family?  But let us ask this, why did it come to the point where there was nowhere for that unfortunate soul to go to find a meal or meals?  Years ago I would watch the house makeover show for some deserving family.  It was amazing to see the before and after and what it meant for the family’s living conditions, yet I also realize there are surely many other similar families in need that go on working hard to “get by.”  Fate is fickle indeed.  There are posts on social media now and again where a waitress receives a large “tip” to pay off many bills, or maybe get through a semester of college.  All truly extraordinary.  Yet it seems there is always another case that has a similar story and need.

I wonder if we all gave just a little more – time, knowledge, funds, a should to cry on, advice,   - how would it impact the world.  In other words, if we acted on the caring we feel – the love we feel – I believe we would all be better off for it.  Both the giver and receiver alike benefit, because in the process of giving and receiving we’ll learn we are far more alike than different.

So “love harder”, as it echoes and recedes, means to me that we all start to care for each  other just a little more, and we act on that caring.  We all know hardships of some kind, and we all know what it’s like to have a someone jump in with a lending hand.

Love harder.

Love Harder

“Time After Time” is a TV adaptation of the novel and movie of the same name.  The premise is that HG Wells has built a time machine.  The time machine is used by Jack the Ripper to escape a manhunt, and HG follows him hours later to the future in NYC.  There is a good plot line, which I won’t ruin, but I’ll key in on one point.  The story shows HG sobbing at the news shown on the TV.  The power that the human race hold to wage war and destruction is awe inspiring in the worst way, and all HG can do is cry at the lack of wisdom he had thought the human race would surely have found “in the future.”  He was hoping that the future would be closer to a utopia than his time of 1893 in London.

I have a lot on my mind and there are two distinct paths I can take this little flock of words.  One regards the ills of the world, but as seen in the clip I’m recalling, there is plenty on each day’s daily news to keep that rabbit hole open for, well for ever.

What crosses my mind right now, though, is that there are many advances since 1893 that are incomprehensible for someone from that time to grasp. Mechanized machinery of every kind, from cars as we know them to airplanes and rocket ships would astound, and really still should. More than that though look at science and all we as humans have learned.  On the positive side exploration of biology has led to miraculous advances in the medical field.

If born in 1893 I would be dead a minimum of 3 times over, and I suspect that’s probably one or even two orders of magnitude too low. I look at being given a blood transfusion at a couple weeks old, receiving a liver transplant, surviving emergency surgery and the removal of my colon and being here to talk about it.  That doesn’t even address the countless medications that alone or in combination with the surgeries and procedures worked to cure me of something or other.  Genetic therapies are being realized now and the techniques and abilities to repair the body are nothing short of remarkable.

Yet as I sit here comfortably on my couch there are those whose lives are ebbing despite all the advantages of modern medicine.  My cousin is among them.  I always expected to be the first of my generation in our family to go, but it doesn’t seem that fate has that in mind. I don’t know what to make of this fact.

Most of you know by now that this is the point in the story where I find the sliver of silver lining.  While there are some things I’ve witnessed and learned in the past few weeks that give every reason to smile, every reason to remark at the strength of wives and family caring for the dying, I sit here feeling a little lost.  Lost for words. Lost for meaning. It’s unclear if this melancholy is a result of contemplating the finite life we all have, or the imminent loss of my cousin, or the recent loss of a friend to COPD. Is it knowing there are families that need to regroup in the aftermath? Is it specifically the warmth my cousin and his family have graced me with even though we’ve spent precious little time together over the years? Honestly, it’s probably all of that and more that I have yet to understand or recognize.

The fact remains though, right now, this minute, I sit in a restlessness unquenched by news of the profane, inane or extraordinary.  I appreciated the solar eclipse today, but as friend put it, an orb of rock blocked the view of a ball of gas for a couple minutes.  Time didn't stop. Much of the daily grind feels as it’s described, just a monotonous grind. The real beauty of connection, of real discussion, conversation, friendship and love, the visible wonder of the world, the compassion that is shown by so many on a daily basis is but a fraction it seems of the day to day existence. Life is short.

Pray hard.

Play hard.

Love harder.  

Sentinel

It’s quarter to five and I’m sitting here at work unable to accomplish much of anything really.  A letter that I want to write hides inside the overgrown jungle of partial thoughts. The old Kansas song Dust In the Wind echoes faintly in my mind while newer tunes from London Grammar, Paolo Nutini and Tom Odell vie for attention.  There is a faint hum of an air handling system that resides in the closet of my office, but otherwise the only the truly audible sound is the click clack of my typing.

There are other distractions and work available yet there is little interest in them right now.  The struggle to grasp the purpose, meaning and fruitfulness of life gnaws at me. It’s simultaneously time to celebrate a birthday, a death, a coming wedding and pending death.  I’m excited to call my mom tonight and wish her a big happy birthday and pray she has a great day.  Meanwhile my friend Bill, a Vietnam Vet, passed last night after his last battle.  A battle fought long and hard against COPD.  COPD is another one of those insidious diseases that little by little wear at you, eventually your lungs unable to supply enough oxygen to your body. 

A dear friend is getting ready to be wed this weekend and I am thrilled to see her happy, and excited for the future.  Deb and I have the honor of being involved in the wedding and it will be lovely.  Yet my excitement, right now at least, is tempered.  For only a couple hours ago my cousin Alan’s battle with cancer is nearer its conclusion.  His pain was no longer manageable and he has been placed on a conscious sedation.  He can hear, but basically he’s asleep and won’t be able to respond.  It’s a sad reality that he is not long for this world.  The consolation is that his pain is gone.

I wish I knew how to reconcile all of these emotions.  I had hoped to find words of meaning and value to share with my cousin’s family and likewise with my friend’s family.  There just doesn’t seem to be a vocabulary that is sufficient for the task.  There is no way to communicate the empathy that I long to share.  The best image that I can conjure is that of a silent sentinel.  One that stands guard, stands with them in the quiet darkness, and continues to stand there until the light of fond remembrances emerge.  For they surely will.

Both Alan and Bill, though they knew each other not, shared a passion for life and for motorized art as well.  Alan’s first car was a wreck of a machine that most would have sent to the wrecking yard.  He pounded out dents, of which there were many on every panel of that machine, applied bondo and shaped, sanded and painted until it was a pretty decent machine, far, far better than anyone would have expected from such a sorry initial state.  That passion continued and grew over the years. I’m not sure of all the motorcycles and cars in the garage over the years.  But it should come as no surprise  that even his golf cart was tricked out with a raised suspension and custom paint.  Bill too liked his hot rods and motorcycles.  From Goldwings to Camaros and Dodge Charges, he loved his machines.  And again for both, the even stronger passion was for their families.  It was just plain evident, it was a palpable, noticeable love that you couldn’t help but see.

My sadness followed by wonderful memories feels like being in an ocean swell falling down the face for a time yet picked up the next incoming wave. There doesn’t seem much to do other than accept the ride for what it is – a part of life. The ocean seems a fitting metaphor in many ways.  How often do we visit the beach to find “our happy place” by taking in the calm lapping waves, or maybe a bit rougher time of a roaring break good for surfing?  Yet seeing a truly angry confused sea will cause trepidation, awe and maybe even fright.  There are a variety of moods offered up by that body of water, just as there are by the reality and remembrances that our minds wrestle to understand.

I’m sure my melancholy will ebb, and my excitement will grow for the other events that occur today or this weekend.  For now, though, I’m going to surf the plunging break of sadness and rise to the next fond memory before starting it over again.  This is not an intentional planned adventure but rather a random wandering brought on by the shifting sands of mood, and musical choices.  I still haven’t found the words to share, but perhaps the feelings and sentiment tied up in this note will point the way and illuminate the path.

Gravity

There is a force that holds us to the earth, that pulls on us incessantly.  Gravity as Newton realized is constant acceleration that we fight against.  Yet without that force we would not be able to stand. You might say without something to fight against we would not be able to live as we understand it.  We would not be able to run or lift  something. Without something to fight against we would not be who we are.  This extends beyond the ability to be mobile, and beyond the physical.

Who would you be if not for the challenges, the forces, that vie against you?  Is is not the reaction to obstacles that defines us.  It’s the opposition that often shows us the value an measure of a thing. Mountains are the high spots and valleys the low.  There could be neither highs nor lows if the world were just flat and monotonous. There would be no poor if we didn’t understand riches.

I know my mind is traveling quickly here, and not spending a lot of time developing the thoughts above. There is a point I want to reach before I lose my way.

There are some that ponder the meaning of life.  We question what we’ll be when we grow up  - no matter our current age. We question what it means to be successful and how to measure it.  We search for friends and a special partner with whom to spend time. We finish school, get a job, start a career.  Some of us struggle from pay check to pay check with meager finances.  Others struggle with addictions or with relationships. There are any number of problems that keep our minds and bodies busy, moving searching and seeking.

We tell each other we are busy, too busy most of the time. Many are caught up in the so called ‘rat race.’ And we continue to wander nearly aimlessly, trying to sniff out the waft of the cheese at the end of the maze while the researchers in lab coats time us.  That’s how life seems to many.  Life is a series of semi-autonomous moves one day after another. The years of school blend into the early job. That blends into the marriage and kids, which in turn becomes the taxi service to all the required sports and events.  All followed by the empty nest and reconnecting.  And I wonder…

I wonder if most of us in our early and mid years truly know what it means to live. I come back to gravity, only this time it has a different name.  It is called death.  My question is do we truly know what life is, or better, what it should be if we don’t recognize the opposition.  Our life on this earth is finite. We all know that in some fashion.  We have had pets that have died, we have had older family members that have gone on before us.  We miss them, morn them and grieve for them. Do we take the time though to examine how we are living knowing there is a finite period of time ahead?

Do we really understand that this fickle thing called life owes us nothing. Have we learned that life is not fair?  Why is it that we have a mind that assumes there is always tomorrow, that we will see the next day? Maybe it my advancing age. Maybe is seeing those as young (old?) as myself that are not long for this world. Maybe it’s the fact that my health has seen the ups and downs for too many years. Maybe it’s the cumulative effect of all those factors, but gravity seems to be a little stronger than I’d like to admit right now.

As the reality of gravity pulls on my existence, knowing that life is fickle, how do I stop and tell the researcher to fuck off. How do I stop the rat race, end the game of relentlessly stumbling through the maze in search of a block of congealed, soured milk?

If I’m honest with you, I have to admit that truthfully I’m not sure how to stop the game completely. There are, though, some things that I have learned over the last few years.  I’ve learned that slowing down for conversation is vital, as is intentionally looking for the good and lovely, the beautiful.  Similarly, creating is key.  That might be playing an instrument, singing -even if by yourself in the shower or car.  Maybe that’s some form of art- doodling, sketching, finger painting, pottery, painting in watercolor, oils, acrylics, pastels. It could be writing, a journal, blog, poetry, and essay or book. Maybe its photography, or woodworking, sewing, crocheting, knitting.  We haven’t mentioned acting or dancing yet.  It doesn’t matter how great it is or if it’s published or only seen by you.  Do it. Create. Explore.

Why you might ask?  For the connection to the world, to each other. For the sense of wonder and discovery.  For what is life about if not for connection, community and the discovery of beauty and adventure?